


Change in the Weather

by TwoCatsTailoring



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Character Development, F/M, Slow Burn, female trevelyan/iron bull - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-05-19 00:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 9,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14863268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: It's not what either of them were expecting, but maybe it's what they both really need.





	1. Misplaced Trust

**Author's Note:**

> A note about this fic: The line at the beginning of each chapter is meant to help place where in the storyline it is, but because some of this stuff can be done in all kinds of orders, I've just picked an order that makes sense to me. I also trade points of view each chapter, and I hope it's clear who's talking.

**_“You’re a Qunari spy, and you just_ ** **_told_ ** **_me?”_ **

That made no sense. Running through what she knew about him already - next to nothing, that was for sure - the very notion of him just owning up to being a spy before she’d done anything but talk to him for ten minutes? It made no sense.

Either this Iron Bull was completely full of shit or he was the real deal. And she honestly didn’t have time to be figuring that out while standing in the pouring rain. Echo weighed her options carefully and finally decided to hire him.

If he proved to be a liability, Qunari could still be killed. Even if they were head and shoulders taller than just about everyone she knew. And exceptionally well-muscled. And clearly not shy about showing it. 

At least she could enjoy the view on the way back to Haven. It was all about the small mercies.


	2. Too Late

**_“Brutally, skillfully, so their last living thought is realizing that I’m stronger and smarter than they are?”_ **

It’s just chatter, really. Something to fill the blank spots when things are too quiet out here in the back end of the Hinterlands with nothing around for miles but bandits and bears. He means it, of course. The best course of action is to tell the truth all the time. It’s not like any of these people would know when he’s lying anyway, so it’s just easier to keep it honest for now.

What he wasn’t expecting to see is how Echo’s eyes lit up. The Iron Bull is certain that it’s probably not even her real name. When it comes to naming their kids, Free Marchers fall into two categories, and ‘named after a sound’ is not one of these. But he lets that one line go - about skill and brutality and that final moment when they realize they are dead before they are actually dead and her eyes go from that milky jade color to something more along the lines of polished malachite.

He knows Marcher nobility doesn't usually teach the daughters of their houses how to pick locks, or throw knives. Yet, somebody taught this one, and Bull wondered if they had any idea what they were doing.


	3. Just a Drop...

**_“I’m glad you’re here, Bull.”_ **

It feels so forward, so bold. So.... Everything she was never supposed to be in the company of any man. Brash, obvious, demanding. Is her face as red as it feels like it is? Probably not. Besides, it’s so cold, and the wind is so bitter, she can just blame her blush on that. As long as he can’t hear her heart slamming against her chest like Harritt’s hammer.

Flirting with everyone was fun. And interesting. A way to break of the monotony of waiting for something that she was expected to go fix. Watching Cullen stammer and Blackwall become so earnest was fascinating - that  _ she _ could elicit such a reaction! Josephine’s obliviousness and Cassandra’s blushing and Sera’s laughter and even Varric’s flat turning her down were… they were... So... Well, they were fun and revealing and sweet.

And Dorian? Oh, Dorian! He could actually make her blush and she seemed to do the same thing to him! They ended up batting their eyelashes at each other before dissolving into snickers and giggles over glasses of wine, sitting too close together to be appropriate, neither of them caring.

By comparison, telling Bull that she was glad he was here instead of somewhere in Orlais was extremely tame. But then, he looked down at her with that half-smile, like he knew something about her that she didn’t, and said, “Me too,”

Echo couldn’t even think straight enough to wonder at her reaction.


	4. Wonder How

**_"Hey, there's a big, crazy light in the sky that craps out demons! Let's worship it!" That makes sense!_ **

Honestly, humans had to be the biggest bunch of idiots on the surface of Thedas. He reserved  judgement on the dwarves. Aside from Rocky, Varric, and Harding, he didn’t know enough dwarves for it to be reliable. And at least the elves tried.

And yet, here the humans were, holed up in this battered keep with a rift in the basement, spewing out demons ripe and ready to possess any twit that wandered by at the perfect moment. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Echo tells them point blank that she is not the Herald of Andraste but they still asked she prove that she was. 

Hur dur bend the rift to your will not-Herald hur dur!

And she was going to do it. Not because she needed to prove anything but because the damned thing needed to be closed fast. Otherwise, a castle full of fools would fall prey to possession and horrible deaths. She was walking into yet another potential death trap for people too dumb to know any better. Right before she did it, she’d let out the most unattractive snorting laugh at his sarcastic comment and clapped her hand over her mouth, looking guilty.

And he was the biggest idiot in the room for being utterly charmed by it.


	5. I Do Not Rest

**_“Good work. We have a path free of corpses back to the shore.”_ **

They have to get to their people and get them out of this nightmare.

The words come out steady - never let them see you sweat, her father liked to say - but there’s icy rivulets of fear coursing through her hair and down the back of her neck that have nothing to do with the rain. The stench of plague that lingers, hangs in the air, making her stomach churn.

Don’t let them see you sweat. 

Maybe that will be all. Maybe there won’t be any more shambling, rotting corpses stumbling up out of the mud, mouths gaping and weapons drawn, forgetting they are dead. Or possessed. Whichever it is.

She looks over her shoulder as they make their way forward, “The castle is just ahead.” Echo forces a smile but is certain she’s showing too many teeth to convince anybody. “I wonder what kind of warm wel…!”

She grunts, surprised and thrown off balance by a reeking corpse that rose right out of the mud under her feet. As she stumbles, more rise, squelching up out of the ground in the near distance. Two, then eight. Then fifteen. She loses count in the confusion of battle, that crawling horror turning her stomach in on itself, making her ears buzz, just to block out the sound of half-rotten bodies.

It’s so loud, she doesn’t hear Varric’s shout of warning or the shriek of the undead warrior as it brought its rusted blade up towards her head. But she doesn’t miss the shockwave of Bull’s war cry as he appeared between them, standing like a wall. Or the spray of foul liquid as he cleaved the monster in two with a single swing.

“...many of them! Let's get to the castle!” His voice breaks through the sick fog of her brain and gets her moving again, focused on the path ahead. Get to their people. Get them out.


	6. If You Don't

**_“Nah, I can see you don't want to talk about it. Bet you looked good doing it, though.”_ **

It’s a calculated risk. A little light flirting with Cassandra who wouldn't take him seriously for all the shine on her armor just to see what kind of reaction he would get out of Echo. She was a mystery that he needed to untangle. He didn’t like not knowing where he stood with the woman important people looked to for advice.

Bull wondered what it was that made him so determined to figure her out. Echo (Red wasn’t giving up her actual name for love or money. He knew because he’d offered her both. She laughed at the first and took the second, thanked him, and walked off. He liked her better for it.) was forward enough to flirt openly with him but seemed unsure about it at the same time.

No, not unsure. She was genuinely attracted to him. Initially he thought she was just rebellious and seeing him as a sort of forbidden object, someone her family would hate thus all the more appealing. But now, he wasn’t so sure that was where it stopped. 

Because with Cullen, she was natural. Easy-going and inclined to giggling afterwards. Bull thought at first that she was just baiting him, but now? She wasn’t even flirting so much as being nice to the guy. He probably needed somebody to be nice to him, after all that shit at Kirkwall, so he reciprocated like the soft-hearted man he was.

And with Dorian? Well, Bull could tell that was a dead end for her but she clearly couldn’t. Echo was enchanted by him - not in the weird Vint-magic way but just in the normal moony-eyed human way - and still managed to be relaxed and as silver-tongued as he was. He and Varric had money riding on which of them would scandalize the Chantry sisters first. He had ten gold on Dorian simply because the man had nothing to lose.

Also because she was a mess every time she said anything vaguely suggestive to him. Sure, she hid it well, for where she came from, but as tame as everything she’d said to him was compared to the things she would say to nearly anyone else? It made no sense for her to be confident and engaging and outgoing with  _ everyone  _ but him.

And now her reaction to his mild, suggestive remark to Cassandra was to look away from the two of them, the line of her jaw tightening at the edge of her ear and her chin down, staring at the toe of her boot as she kicked a loose rock off the ledge. It… wasn’t what he expected.

It wasn’t a jealous reaction. That he would understand if she was intent on having him. Not a self-depreciating one either, which wouldn’t be surprising from a younger child of minor nobility. Almost as soon as the rock left the ledge, her chin came back up and she turned back with her expression schooled into good humor, chuckling just a few seconds after Cassandra. But there was  _ something  _ in that look, he just knew it. 


	7. In the Desert

**_“It’s your culture and I’d like to get to know you better.”_ **

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Just being friendly, trying to learn about this odd group of people who seemed to come out of everywhere to fight with the Inquisition. Nothing at all suspicious about that. No reason at all why she kept ending up back here every time they got back from some random errand.

“You could just ask.”

“I _am_.” That came out sharper than was maybe strictly necessary but why the pushback all of a sudden? 

Oh, right. He’s a spy. Echo had forgotten that. Something Leliana would probably give her a hard time for if she knew. And she would because Leliana always knew everything.

Still, Bull (The Iron Bull? It didn’t sound like a mindless killing machine to her, it sounded like back-stairs self-importance) spent the better part of the next hour answering her questions and explaining what she didn’t understand with, if not exactly enthusiasm then at least patience. They moved from everyday life, to governance, on to the tamassarans (that she found fascinating and asked far too much about.) From there on to families and relationships.

And then, her understanding of his world hit a brick wall. Sure, she could get that Sera and Varric would not be a good fit with the Qun. It did sound really limiting to her, in spite of the direction that it had to offer. Knowing who you are and what you were doing sounded great. But the fact remained that she’d been born to privilege, had hated every second the imposed limits, had bucked and fought against the bonds of it for most of her life, and at the first viable chance, had attempted leaving it all behind. 

The relative success of that escape was still up for debate. No one told her to smile or stand up straight or reminded her that if she didn’t get over her selfishness soon, she would be too old to marry well and would have no choice but to join the Chantry. But at the same time she was still just as much a prisoner because she couldn't leave the Inquisition. 

At least she could leave Haven. Not under guard but on her own, and with people that she liked and enjoyed spending time with. Got along with and could empathize with. Like Bull.

But the very idea that there was no real partnership under the Qun, nothing beyond sex for the sake of sex? That she could not comprehend. Her head just wouldn’t wrap around that. She knew it was written all over her face when she asked, “So you’ve never actually made love? Connected with someone body  _ and  _ soul?”

How could that be? After everything she’d heard from the girls at the tavern. After the one thing that she’d heard from that one Chantry sister. Everything seemed to indicate that they hadn’t had any complaints about how moving the experience was for them. Was it really so unremarkable for him?

Echo hoped belatedly, as he hesitated, slowly admitting that he hadn’t and giving an example of an eye-opening orgy in true Orlesian style, that her mouth wasn’t hanging open or her eyes too wide. She almost responded that his lack of love-making was very sad before she realized something and clamped her mouth shut tight on the subject.

If it came right down to it without expanding her own definition of making love,  _ she hadn’t had it either. _


	8. Let You Be

**_“You’ve got a good army coming along, no matter what comes next.”_ **

He meant it to be comforting; an acknowledgement of the uncertainty of the future and a vote of confidence from him that whatever it was, she had good people at her back. But when she grimaced instead of smiling, he knew that wasn’t how she took it.

“This was good,” she’d said, and probably meant it too because distracted people fall back on the easiest course of action; usually the truth. And she wasn’t all that much different than anybody else, when it came to essentials. Meaning, above anything else, she was a decent person, thoughtful, considerate no matter what her barbed tongue could do otherwise.

They’d talked some on the way to Skyhold. It was a long walk and while lots of people wanted her attention, she’d been content to let them come to her. Probably because she was exhausted and still suffering under both the weight of Haven’s destruction and whatever she came across in her climb out of the wreckage.

He didn’t believe for a minute that her return was the act of the Maker. She’d explained it to him, how just beyond the trebuchet platform, there’d been a building of some sort. Everything collapsed, she’d jumped for it, and come to in a hollow created by the mountainside coming down. He believed it because he’d seen it happen before, with bricks and mortar. Snow would be even easier to make pockets in.

“You walking out of that was a miracle,” he’d told her as they slogged through more snow and she’d opened her mouth, her face set to argue with him but he forestalled her, “But the same kind of miracle as surviving a fight where you are outnumbered. Same kind of miracle as Solas not losing his toes to frostbite in all this snow.”

She’d smiled then, the first real one he’d seen on her face since before Haven went up in flames. It didn't last long and she didn’t actually laugh, but the warmth in his chest made it feel like a win for him. 

Now, he was losing ground with her. Bull wasn’t sure why it bothered him, but it did. She didn’t want this, didn’t believe any of the Herald, Chosen One, ‘Your Worship’ bullshit and kept telling them that. But it kept falling on deaf ears at this point. Her legend had already gotten bigger than she was and he knew how this would go. It was only going to get bigger from here on. 

Still, he had to admire her. He watched, head cocked to the side as she walked slowly through the night, up the stairs into the main hall with her head bent down in thought. The fires reflected on her hair, making it look as sleek and glossy as black dragonling scales. She’d made a lot of tough calls already and weathered the consequences without a word of regret or any looking back.


	9. What You Don't Need

**_“We lost a lot of good men at Haven. I'm not going to lose you too.”_ **

Twice in one day she has had grown men, soldiers who’ve seen far worse things than Haven laid to ruin, standing in front of her, blushing and stammering. Why? What had she done? Is not wanting to see her friends die so emotionally compromising to them that they can’t function?

Cullen she could understand. She can’t imagine the Templars, who had already proved susceptible to Corypheus’s influence, knew much about openly caring for their own. But Blackwall? She really had expected more from him. 

Every person in the keep was treating her differently. Even Cassandra, who’d been more than willing to explain things and talk to her like a person, was doing it - deferring to her when she could honestly make better call without Echo’s input. Varric was less chatty, less inclined to his extravagant lies, and much more interested in asking her for advice.

It was like, since they made her Inquisitor, they all forgot she was no different from the person they were ready to try and hang for murder, less than three months before. It sucked, she hated it, and now, the people she’d thought were her friends acted like the title - one she never wanted - made her somehow more important than she was a week ago!

Ok, maybe not all of them. Leliana was still the sharp sort of friendly and Cole seemed to understand her well. And Dorian was too angry - first about her nearly dying, then about that meddling Sister Giselle and the letter his father had sent - to be pulling that rank crap.  

And Bull was normal too. While Blackwall and Cassandra gave her trite lines about how she was now a symbol of the Maker, and Andraste’s will, and how people rallied around her as a bastion of hope in these dark times, Bull sat with her, talked about Seheron, the Fog Warriors, and wondered where the dragon they'd seen on the Storm Coast went. He hadn't made it all weird.

And he’d clearly told Krem how she hated the “Your Worship" business because he never missed a chance to call her that with a smirk and a bounce of his eyebrows. The ass.

It was nice, though.

Thinking about him had led her feet in the direction of the tavern again. At this point, she wasn't even surprised. She nodded to Krem and rounded the stairs to drop onto the chair next to where Bull was sitting, alone, watching people come and go.

“Long day, boss?” He really did have an attractive smile.

“People are stupid.”

“Sometimes. Have a drink?” He rotated the handle of a tankard on the side table towards her.

“Please.” The ale was good. Clear and bright, with just a little something spicy behind it. Just enough to warm her up after being outside.

“So tell me about the stupid people.” 

And she did, giving him the short version while downing mouthfuls of ale whenever she paused for breath, until she drained the last, grousing, “So I suppose now I'm just a title, not a person. All responsibility with no room left to just be me.”

Bull considered this for a moment. “Everything has changed overnight for everyone. From their point of view, you have had all the answers. From yours,” he shrugged, “it's not that simple. Give your friends some time to catch up with you.”

He lifted the mug from her hands as she thought about it and walked to the bar for a refill. By the time he came back, Echo could see his point.

It took her until she was in bed that night that night to realize he’d walked away with one mug and returned with two. Sleep was elusive, then. She kept trying to sort out the tangle of feelings and thoughts she had about one simple act. 

He’d let her finish his ale.


	10. Holding You

**_“Not a bad spot to camp.”_ **

It was, too. Close to the river but far enough from the last group of bandits they’d cleared earlier. If there were more poking around, the camp was out of sight. It would take a few hours for the Inquisition’s forces to show up and set the place up, but until then, it was a protected place to rest. And they could all use the rest after a full day in the field.

“I call dibs on Bull!” Sera’s voice is tired but enthusiastic.

“Why Sera, I didn’t know I was your type,” Bull demurred, a dramatic hand to his cheek while Dorian made a sound of disgust and Echo’s whistle for one of Leliana’s birds trailed off into spitting laughter.

Sera gave him a two fingered salute and fired back, “Not what I meant, arse. My shoulders are all knotty.” She dropped her gear next to a log and plopped herself down on the ground in front of Bull.

“Ohh, I’m next then,” Echo said once she’d sighted the messenger bird. Bull raised and eyebrow at her and she shrugged. “I’ve had a cramp in my side since this morning.”

“Keep this up and I’m going to start charging,” Bull said mildly, digging his knuckles into the back of Sera’s neck.

She wasn't too bad this time, all knotted up for sure but, given the amount of time they had been out here and all the time she had spent aiming and firing, it wasn’t half as bad as she usually got. Ten minutes and Sera was as good as new, sauntering off to have a look at their location from higher up.

“All right, boss. Your turn.” Bull popped his knuckles and motioned Echo over with a nod, pretending he didn't see her hesitate just a little. It wasn't even really a hesitation so much as it was her rethinking having actually asked versus the realities of acting on it. 

He’s gotten that reaction from her a lot recently.

It had been more conspicuous since Dorian came clean. Bull had heard that it actually went ok, that he was apologetic and she was understanding and if anything? They were closer than before without Dorian treating his sexual preferences like some dirty little secret. 

“It must be bad if you are asking for my help,” he teased, reaching for the strap closest to him while she worked on another. “What’d you get in to? This buckle is all sticky.”

“That’s where I keep my sweets,” she said evenly, “It’s a Marcher thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

Bull laughed as she shrugged, hissing as her armor went loose and fell to the ground. 

“But it is bad. I wonder if I’ve overdone it. I haven't been able to work this cramp out since this morning. Remember those two Freemen?” She lifted her left arm and gestured to a spot about halfway up her side. 

Bull nodded and ran his hand over the place she pointed out, taking a second to enjoy the warmth radiating off of her, the firm muscle under sweat-stiff cotton, her body so small compared to his hand but definitely not fragile. Even when she flinched away at the contact.

“That tender?” 

“It  _ has  _ been cramped up all day,” she admitted with a frown.

“I’ll start slow then.”

With Sera he was able to grind his fingers into her, sometimes hard enough to feel her elfy little bird bones under her skin. She never complained, occasionally made some obscene noise of relief that he would give her a hard time for. But she was the exception, most people had to work up to that so he would start easy, feeling around for the tight places then working them loose by increasing the pressure. 

He’d barely pressed against Echo’s side for the first time when she cried out, shoving his hand away, her jaw trembling as she spun away. 

“Shit, shit,  _ shit _ !”

A sticky buckle, a shirt a little too stiff. Every alarm he had went off in his head at once and he reached for her, pulling her back to him and lifting up the end of her shirt. 

Sera called to them from her ledge above, demanding to know what was wrong. Dorian was already at his side, cursing in Tevene when he saw the neat slice in her side, right in line with the narrow gap at the side of her armor. 

“Let go! Let go, no don’t touch it again! I’m fine, just leave it alone!” Echo was babbling and doing everything that she could to break Bull’s grip on her, clawing at the hand he had on her hip and shoving at his shoulders.

“It’s not deep,” Dorian assessed, “but….”

Bull had understood the minute he saw the dark stain spreading under her skin. The angle of whatever had slid in there had been just right, slicing a neat pocket just under her skin about three inches square. Her armor had held it all together, not allowing the skin to move and to start it healing, but once that came off? There was nothing holding it secure anymore. It had to hurt between movement and sweat and the sudden lack of support making it start to gape open and bleed again.

“That’s great. And us out of potions with hours ‘til they get here?” Sera skidded to a halt and pulled a face at the grisly wound in Echo’s side. 

Dorian stood up and took Echo’s face in his hands, his complexion as pale as hers from the day’s exertion, “Darling, you have got to be still. I’m no healer and I’m exhausted. I have got to touch it to fix it.”

“No, no Dorian it’s fine.” Echo’s hair was starting to come out of it’s braid as she shook her head violently, her voice breaking with nervous laughter.  “Leave it alone, I’ll be okay. We’ll be back at Skyhold soon. I'll just put my chest piece back on and….”

Bull exchanged a pointed look with Dorian as she babbled on, begging, bargaining, scrambling for any other options. For once, both were in complete agreement and understanding. Bull let Sera distract Echo while he reeled her in, crossing her arms together across her chest and holding them there in a bear hug as he eased her on to his lap. 

He nodded at Dorian who wasted no time in letting magic filter through his trembling hands, knitting together the filleted layers of her skin while she fought Bull’s hold. She begged Doiran to stop, wait, leave it alone until the pain of the wound and the magic was too much for her, then sinking her teeth into Bull’s arm to keep from screaming again. 

It was all over quickly, Dorian was able to put her back together again but unlike the real healers, he couldn’t stop it hurting. He murmured apologies in her ear and pressed a kiss to her hair and promised her a full bottle of his brandy when they returned to Skyhold. Then he and Sera went off in search of a patch of Embrium Sera remembered seeing not far away, hoping it would ease Echo’s pain.

Bull loosened his grip when she finally began to relax, but he didn’t let go. Her breathing steadied and she shifted, freeing one hand to shove a few stray hairs out of her face but he still didn’t let her go. Now that she was right here, wrapped in his arms and not shaking in pain or fear, he didn’t want to let go.

“That - that was awful,” she said at last, her voice small.

“I’ll bet,” he agreed, with a sage nod. “You probably could have fit a sandwich in there.”

Echo looked up at him laughed weakly. “It felt more nug-sized.”

He chuckled and gave her shoulder a squeeze, “Nug smuggling. Red would approve.”

Silence filled what little space there was between the two of them, and he watched as the closeness became apparent to her, her expression going tense, then relaxing again, her mouth working around words that she wasn’t ready to speak. 

Bull tilted his head to the side, surveying her carefully and deciding that the direct approach might be best right now, started, “So, would it be alright for me to k….”

He didn’t get to finish because Sera’s head popped back up over the edge of camp, followed by the rest of her and Dorian, their mission having been successful. It was just enough of a distraction for her to slip under his arms and away, one hand pressed to the pale pink scar on her side. 

“...kiss you?” he finished to himself. Well, there was still time. 


	11. Pretend

**_“The loss of the Ben-Hassarath information will hurt. Can we smoke out some of your old contacts?”_ **

 

The only thing that stopped her from stabbing Gatt straight through the neck was the memory of the lost expression on Bull’s face. If she got right down to the heart of it, it wasn’t the expression itself but her own fear at seeing it on him, of all people, that froze her hands in fists at her sides.

He’d looked to her to decide. That thought kept running through her head all the way back to the rendezvous point with the Chargers, all the way back to Skyhold. The Iron Bull, who led from the front and kept his men alive had looked to  _ her  _ to make the call that would have him do those very things. 

What state could he have been in to have to ask her? He’d never asked her for input. He was confidence itself: sure and deliberate in everything he did without needing any kind of validation or advice or any of that.  _ She  _ was the one who went to  _ him _ . What happened in his mind for it to be the other way around?

He seemed okay now. Well, not completely okay because not even a week ago he’d been running Krem through the wringer over that rush-move and even she could tell that Krem wasn’t getting much better at it. And as tired and sore as he was, Krem couldn't stop anything, much less Bull but Bull just let him go, smiling at Krem as he walked off. 

It was a lot to think about and she had no idea where to even begin. Somehow, asking him so soon felt invasive and insensitive. The Qun had been his life, all he ever knew, the basis for his whole sense of self and worldview. One command from her, and that had all been stripped from him.

That made Echo feel sick. Because she’d made that decision. And she had made it without hesitation, and without any thought as to what it would mean to him. Because she hadn’t realized, hadn’t known or had any frame of reference as to what he would be giving up. She’d made the decision while standing in her own shoes and considering only her own interests.

She’d made the decision and he’d acted on her order. And now, now he was cut off from the entirety of his life before. That knowledge felt very heavy and sour in her chest.

She’d wanted to leave her life in Ostwick behind. She’d known that it would be hard, that she would have to work in ways she’d never had to work before, but she’d been aware of it, and had been able to at least be mildly prepared for it. She hadn’t been prepared for  _ this _ , of course, but she’d been ready to join a mercenary band or even bandits if it came down to it. Just to get away.

But for Bull, it was different. He’d lived beyond the direct reach of the Qun for a long time; how long she wasn’t sure but several years at least. He’d even seemed a little wary of this proposed alliance - something about used to the Qun being somewhere else, not right in his face? But it was still the life that shaped him, the beliefs that he’d adhered to, and it formed the whole of a youth that he obviously remembered fondly. 

And that guy Gatt. He’d tried to convince Bull to not sound the retreat by telling them that the Ben-Hassrath already thought he’d turned his back on the Qun. As much as Gatt made her skin crawl, if he was telling the truth then that added a whole new layer of complexity to the situation. 

How much of a connection did he really have with his homeland? How much did it actually hurt to know there was no going back? That there was no undoing what he’d done? What she’d ordered him to do? 

Echo mulled this over for a few days, wondering and doubting for a while only to come back around to being convinced she’d done the right thing. Of course, she had done the right thing. There was no necessity of having the Qun or their spy network, she had Leliana and her agents after all, but that meant that she might have materially hurt one of her own closest friends by deciding against his people in favor of…. In favor of his  _ people _ .

Maker, what a fucked up mess this all was. Was nothing ever going to be simple?

Was three days enough time? Enough space? Well, it was just going to have to be, she decided to herself as she headed out in the direction of the tavern. She was so sick of herself and her own fretful company. All the worrying, all the second guessing. All the not knowing when he was right there. And, honestly? If he didn’t have an answer or if he didn’t want to talk about it, he would probably tell her as much.

What did it matter if she pissed him off now? After all, she might have just ruined his life!

She really hoped she hadn’t ruined his life. Really, really hoped. She couldn't think about what the consequences of that might be. She’d lose him for sure, then.

That thought pulled her up short for a second at the tavern door, her hand hovering over the latch for a few seconds before she shook herself and pushed it open. She could think about her own motives later, once she knew for sure where she stood with him.

“Hey, boss. Got a minute?”

“Sure.” Act natural, she thought violently. He’s acting fine, so should you. “What’s up?”

“Come with me.”

So she followed him up to the battlements, mentally chewing her nails back to her knuckles the whole way.


	12. Time to Go

**_“Whatever I miss, whatever I regret... this is where I want to be.”_ **

He’s not quite over it; not quite done processing what’s just happened between them up on the battlements. It’s been almost two hours. 

Oh sure, he saw the assassins coming from a mile away, knew that today would be the day. He just needed to give them an opening. If nothing else his feelings were hurt that the Ben-Hassrath didn’t send someone who could actually do him any harm. There was a very clear message in that, and in Gatt’s words in the Storm Coast.

They’d written him off as lost a long time ago. The Dreadnaught run? That wasn’t an offer of alliance, it was a test. For him. And, if it had gone the other way, there was no doubt in his mind that down the road somewhere, the Qunari would have turned on the Inquisition.

That was comforting in a way. It also made him feel sick because there was so much hope in the Inquisition right now - so much riding on its success - that the thought of that being snuffed out from the inside, and that he would have had a hand in it, and what it would mean for southern Thedas afterwards was…. Well it wasn’t what he wanted to spend his free time thinking about, that’s for sure. 

But that wasn’t how it had happened so he was free to take what comfort he could from the fact that he wasn’t going to have to sell out Echo, Red, or Cullen. He wasn’t going to have to figure out how to take down Cassandra or Varric or Madame de Fer (fuck, how would anybody even go about that? Was it possible? Could he ask her? She would probably laugh at him.) The Iron Bull wasn’t going to have to do any of that and he was in a position to see to it that nobody else did either.

Because he knew how the Ben-Hassrath operated. And he knew how the Qun operated so he knew that there would be no major change to the methods and training that agents were given. He was also very aware, now that he could see the Dreadnaught Mission for what it was, that there were likely already Qun spies within the ranks of the Inquisition and he knew that it wouldn’t take much for him to be able to find them and remove them.

He’d been worried, he still was, that there would come a time when he’d be just like those savage Tal-Vashoth he’d taken down time and again, all their faces blurring together in his mind. But, after the eye-opening conversation he’d just had with Echo, he felt a little more confident that he wasn’t going to get there anytime soon.

Because she’d yelled at him. His sarcastic, mild-mannered, easily-amused, please-don’t-kill-the-fennec Inquisitor had lost her shit on him. Properly, loudly, even going so far as to stamp her foot to emphasize her point. It was startling, eye opening. 

“Hey!” That’s when she’s stomped her foot. In hindsight, it was hilarious but at the time? Well, if she’d been looking to shut him up, it worked. “You’re a good man. And if the Ben-Hassrath don’t see that then it’s their loss!”

Echo’s volume had increased with every word and crap, had she been mad. It was pretty hot, now that he was thinking about it instead of realigning his world-view with the perspective she was offering. He really shouldn’t be thinking about how her cheeks went pink, her chest heaved, and her eyes got a few shades greener either. She was his boss, after all and the last time he’d fucked his boss, the boss’s wife hadn’t been too keen.

But Echo didn’t have a wife. Or a husband. THAT he was sure of.

But she did have a point that he should be focusing on. He’d lived long enough away from the Qun to be able to function without it. Yeah, it’d been a part he was playing, a role like any other that he’d taken over the years and he’d played it well. Too well, it seemed, since they had already mostly written him off as Tal-Vashoth before any of this went down. 

He hadn’t exactly been struggling with the role either. It had been years now since he’d had to remind himself that he was doing a job. He couldn’t remember when the last batch of information he’d send back hadn’t been edited, stripped of anything too risky or too obviously revealing. Leaving out small details gave way eventually to him leaving out swathes of information that he tried to justify, then gave up trying to reason through.

And it hadn’t gotten any better when he and the boys joined the Inquisition. If anything, the knowledge that everything he sent back would go through Red’s fine-toothed comb was relieving. He didn’t have to think too much about what he wrote down because Red or one of her people would remove the sketchy stuff.

He’d also never edited anything he’d gotten from the Ben-Hassrath agents before he handed those over to her. He read them, then handed them off, confident that she or Echo would deal with whatever needed dealing with. Echo herself would come ask sometimes, what something meant, her mouth set in that crooked line until clarity set in and her forehead smoothed out.

The real point being that he’d never given much thought to that disparity until now. Clearly, this break had been coming on for a while.

Maybe Echo had more than just that one point she had been trying to make. What her point had been seemed to revolve around his own inherent goodness (and her own invested interest in that goodness, if her blush meant anything.) She didn’t have to realize it for him to understand that he hadn’t been really living his life according to the Qun anymore, that he didn’t have to hold on to the loss of something that he’d already given up by inches. 

Maybe it was like ripping off one of those poultices Stitches liked so much. If you did it slow, it wasn’t so bad. It didn’t rip out as much hair and didn’t leave your skin all blistered and peeling for days afterwards. But it never failed, too. Cocky after having not lost half your arm already you tear that last little bit and Andraste herself showed up to tell you that you were a fool and deserved the pain. 

So this was his last pull, the sudden removal of himself from the life that he thought he had somewhere and the choice he now had to make. It wasn’t the first he would ever make but the first one that he could make without the shadow of the Qun over his shoulder, demanding justification or explanation or blind devotion. 

And without those things it was hardly a decision at all. He was good at what he did - damned good at it. He could still go anywhere and do nearly anything because he was The Iron Bull, leader of The Bull’s Chargers. He could choose who to serve, and the logical person to serve was the boss herself - Echo.

He downed a couple of tankards of ale, silently toasting his own freedom and the fact that Krem was still right there in his spot, keeping Bull’s blind spot safe while standing on his chair to get a better look at the pretty bard. Toasting the fact that Dalish was asleep with her head pillowed on her arms, Skinner’s eyes weren’t looking quite so wild, Grim had attracted yet another lusty serving girl somehow. And they were all here to do it.

No, this wasn’t even a decision at this point, much less a hard one. This place, these people, this Inquisition? This Inquisitor? All of it was worth any price, worth any regrets he might have down the road. This was where he wanted to be. 

Almost. A slight geographic adjustment might make it a lot more agreeable to him personally. A few buildings over, a few floors up.

Echo really was beautiful when she was fired up about something….


	13. Wishing for Rain

**“Well, shit.”**

She’s staring at him again. She's staring at his back, now free of the leather and metal of his harness. She is staring and thinking two things at once.

The first is wordless, formless emotion. Something between admiration and wonder at how such obvious physical power could be contained in one person. There is a thread of titillating fear there too because all that power is contained in  _ him _ . The concept of him was another wordless, formless thing in her head. A jumbled mess of a lot of emotions she could give words to, but that would make them too real to deal with. 

Luckily, the second thought running around in her head was not too real to be dealt with. Only it didn’t do so much running as it simply laid around,eyebrow cocked licking its lips, stating,  _ If only I could be that stray drop of water working its way down the valley along his spine, I could die happy. _

That was easy to understand. That was something for her brain to play with, to have fun with. It didn’t involve her having to examine complicated ideas like how he watched her, bold and obvious, but with something thoughtful and gentle in his eye. How he always seemed to anticipate her arrival at breakfast and save her some black pudding (if she was headed into the field) or fairy bread (if she wasn't.) The way he always seemed like he was reaching out a hand to touch her but never actually did it.

Or how much she really, really wanted him to touch her.

No, that was all way too complicated to deal at the moment. There was too much going on in her life, too much happening all the time, at all hours of the day and night, for her to have time to be sorting out all that heavy-handed emotional stuff. Lust was easier. It was so blissfully simple: he was attractive, enormous, and probably the only man she’d ever stood next to who didn’t make her feel like her existence was taking up too much space. 

Which was stupid in the first place because Dorian would ever do such a thing on purpose, even though she was as tall as him. And nobody but Harritt and Dagna knew they had to use Cullen’s pauldron measurements to base hers off since they fit her shoulders really well. And so what? Who cared if she wasn’t the little slip of a thing that everyone back home wanted her to be? Who cared if Blackwall was actually an inch shorter than her? Who cared that the tailors and seamstresses had decided that she should just wear the Inquisition uniform to the Winter Palace because finding and altering a ball gown for her would take time that they just did not have right now?

Well, she did. Obviously. Which was just more proof that she had no real time to waste on such fragile nonsense. Who had time for feelings or an appearance crisis when there was an insane magister on the loose trying to kill everyone everywhere, leaving fixing everything up to her? There were only so many hours in a day and hers had to focus on stopping Corypheus, not on being let down by the lack of a pretty dress or mooning over one of her friends.

Yes, it was much more soothing to get lost following the hard lines of his tattoos with her eyes, idly daydreaming about how he might feel under her hands. The ridges of those vicious scars might be bumpy, or smooth. Or both. And no matter what Varric had to say about it, rippling was the right word for how his muscles moved under his skin. What would it feel like to rake her fingers down his back, digging her fingertips into his skin, legs around his wai….

“You can touch them if you want.”

Echo snapped back into reality, blinking rapidly up at him and floundering for words as the visions of his mouth on her everywhere faded reluctantly. “Pardon?”

“My tattoos,” Bull explained, his mouth quirking up at one corner, “You can touch them if you want. They are permanent, not vitaar.”

“Oh,” her focus, called back from extremely pleasant and extremely graphic places, floundered and she felt her neck get red. “I...um. I had wondered.” 

Echo shook herself and forced composure back into place while he moved to sit beside her on the courtyard stairs. “Yours are so much more defined than most.”

Bull nodded and offered her his shoulder. “The ink in mine isn't really ink,” he explained conversationally, never taking his eye off her face.  “It’s thicker, in between warm seal wax and Dorian’s moustache pomade.”

That analogy made her snicker and grimace, but at least she wasn't overthinking her fingers on his skin. And not overthinking it gave her brain room to notice, “Bull, they’re flat.”

His smile was charming, small and a little crooked. “Because these are done slowly, scratched into the skin over time, healing between layers. It takes a lot of planning,” he admitted.

Her cheeks were getting warm under his close scrutiny, but really did not want to end this here. His skin was cooler than she expected, the hot spring that served as Skyhold’s baths couldn't take the chill from the evening air. But the cool and damp didn’t change the fact that now that she had a hand on him, she was in no hurry to let him go. 

“Time and commitment, too,” he continued. “There’s no easy way to change your mind once you’ve started. The pigment is mixed with fat or oil so it becomes part of flesh.”

He was getting cold now and Echo was pleasantly surprised to notice that he had a fine, nearly invisible layer of hair well, everywhere that she could see. It was probably the best thing she’d seen all day. She made a face while she traced the straight lines of black down his arm. “That. Actually sounds just foul. And risky."

Bull raised an eyebrow and gave her a knowing look, “Riskier than letting some dockhand with a needle and some iron shavings near your eye?”

Echo opened her mouth to explain that he wasn’t a dockhand and it was an approved mixture of finely ground bronze, pine bark, and ok, maybe a little bit of iron but didn’t manage to get the words out because two of his fingers were dancing over the tattoos around her left eye.

It was one thing to ask him for a boost up to a high ledge in the Oasis. To grab his wrist and let him haul her out of yet another Orlesian-made hole in the Dales. To have him grab her by her armor to keep her from falling off a cliff in the underbrush she couldn't see over the top of.  That was nice, but it was business. A means to an end, a reasonable use of the people she was with. Cassandra or Cole or Solas would do the same. 

But his cool fingertips, light on her face, tracing around her eye was something else completely. Personal. Made intimate by the ghost of a smile he still wore and the way he didn’t take his gaze off her face. It felt like time stood still, good-natured argument dying in her throat, her hand braced on his forearm, how had she not noticed how the color of his eye before? She leaned in and up in slow motion, caught firmly in the grip of what she wanted and not thinking at all about what she had time for or complications or anything other than whether he was going to taste like the tavern ale or the good stuff he kept in the flask he usually carried.

“Inquisitor Trevelyan?”

For the second time, Echo was jolted back to reality. This time she was less than gracious about the interruption, turning and snapping, “What is it, Josephine?” 

“You are due to meet with  Comte Neptune du Pied-de-Poisson in a quarter hour. He is very insistent on punctuality.” If she knew what she had just interrupted, Josephine did not give any indication of it as she waited patiently on the landing.

Echo opened her mouth to either tell Josephine to go dunk her head or that she would be right there, she hadn’t completely decided yet when Bull tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and got to his feet with a grunt.

“Sounds important,” he said with a wink. “See you later, boss.”

Echo watched him go her feelings a riot of frustrated desire, tingling anticipation at the promise she thought she heard in his voice, and annoyance with Josephine for her horrible timing. She rose and headed up the stairs, shaking herself mentally and sighing.

“I am sorry this meeting is so late. You do look tired, but I promise that it will not take long,” Josephine soothed as the walked into the main hall. “You do look a bit flushed from being out in the cold. Perhaps something warm to drink during the meeting?”

Echo nodded, thankful that whatever blush might still be lingering on her face could be blamed on the weather and not on the real cause. Which was, of course, that she’d nearly just kissed the object of her most lewd dreams. 

On the steps of a busy and bustling Skyhold courtyard. 

“That sounds wonderful,” she said, sudden gratitude washing over her for Josephine’s near-perfect timing. 


	14. What You Don't Need From Me

**“Last chance…”**

 

He had to give her enough chances. Three felt right. Traditional almost, thought The Iron Bull knows there is exactly nothing traditional about what’s happened in this room tonight. Which was why he gave her every chance to back out.

He had planned this out. Knew what he was going to say, every possible answer and what his response would be. Why? Because it was what he did. And also because it was what had to be done. 

Because Echo (what  _ was  _ her actual name? Not knowing was making him half crazy) might be the Inquisitor, but she was also the daughter of a noble house in the Free Marches. And that came with a baggage as heavy as at least one giant. Most of it revolving around how to behave in public and how to think in private. He knew that she had been eager to escape that world, based on the hints she’d dropped in conversation - from wearing trousers to a ball to paying off would-be suitors under her parents noses, she hadn’t had much use for the niceties of Ostwick’s society for a long time.

But that didn't mean that she didn’t still operate with some of those very rules in mind. She managed really well most of the time - the elves in the Inquisition had nothing to fear from her, she didn’t trip over the Carta or offended the Orzammar representatives. She also didn’t kiss him in public, even when she wanted to so much that her eyes were unfocused and already sliding closed. It was probably the reason why she hadn’t just jumped him like one of the lusty barmaids. Yet.

There was a lot to unpack there, and that was part of his planning. Still, he didn’t want to unpack it all tonight, but he wanted to know what she was looking for, how far she was willing to go. If she actually meant everything she’d said.

She did. He knew that. But what he didn’t know was if it was all just lip service, something to say without having to commit to actually getting anywhere? Was she only after the thrill of the chase, or was there something more? Where was her line in the sand?

That, he genuinely didn’t know. Based on her conversations with close friends, she’d had no shortage of one-and-done flings. And she enjoyed them, too. The freedom, the lack of expectations afterwards. Yet, she was curiously quiet about the ones who  _ did  _ expect something more after the roll in the hay was done but he believed it was probably because of everything  crammed in her head, both from her family and the Chantry, at a young age.

_ She  _ didn’t want to be tied down, so if somebody else got their heart broken by that, more fool them. 

And that statement was why he wanted to make sure he was what she wanted to be doing. Was one of those things she said because it was easier than admitting that she’d either led them on? Or had she wanted more too but wasn’t willing to give up what little freedom she’d clung to?

She had more options now, for sure. Other people were working to keep her reputation as palatable to the masses as it could be. Her decisions, giving second chances when deserved, putting captured enemies to work or to use serving the Inquisition or the people who were hurting the most right now. Her own blade for those who hurt beyond forgiveness. All of those things helped build her legend as she was living it. But with all that came the chains of responsibility. While other people were looking out for her image, she was saddled with looking out for the world and everyone in it.

Was she more content with this set of chains that the others? And would it make in difference in how she felt about who she was taking to bed?

The answer wasn’t forthcoming but he’d hoped that, by giving her plenty of chances to back out, that he would be able to find out. And he had found out. 

Because three chances, to suit the tradition in her veins, and he knew. He’d  _ asked  _ once and  _ warned  _ once and both of her answers had been coy, cheeky. Playful. Her usual wit that he enjoyed and confidence that he loved. But on that…

“Last chance.”

“Won’t you please stay?” Quiet, a question to him with something like worry that he wouldn’t or didn't want to while he had her hands pinned over her head. Hopeful, needy, with a blush creeping up her throat and her eyes boring into his.

It was a relief to hear. Not enough to make him say it out loud, not yet. Not until she was ready to hear it and be okay with it, but he knew he would stay as long as she wanted him to. There was no place he’d rather be.


End file.
